In the late 1940s two events of far-reaching importance took place in the three Western zones of Germany: the Currency Reform and the setting up of the Federal Republic. The Wahrungsreform of June 1948 replaced the Reichsmark, which was so little trusted that in daily life cigarettes had tended to become the accepted currency, with a new ‘Deutschmark’.

This was in effect the begin­ning of West Germany’s much vaunted ‘economic miracle’, the *Wirtschaftswunder’ of the Adenauer-Erhard era: production began to rise immediately, consumer goods appeared in the shops, and the mark was set fair for its transformation into one of the world’s most solid currencies. The first months of the new currency were difficult ones for the West German press, for not only did newsprint soar in price overnight, but the general public found it difficult to make ends meet at first, and had few of the precious deutschmarks left for the purchase of newspapers.

The period of stringency was, however, only temporary, and with increased business activity came a sharp increase in the amount of advertising-confined previously almost entirely to small classified-to help the papers back onto a sound footing. Helped further by the removal of newsprint controls the papers that had appeared mainly as weeklies were now able to increase the frequency of their appearance.

From April to June 1948 the three Western Allies, together with the Benelux countries, met in London to draw up a federal constitution for West Germany, the plan to be ratified by the various Lander, some of which had already started to run their own affairs in early 1947. An initial step towards unifying the Western part of Germany was taken in early 1947, when the two largest zones; the British and the American, were fused for economic purposes into a bi-zone, which the smallest French zone later joined.

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The Allies recognised the new German Federal Republic on 8 April 1949, and replaced their Military Governor with civilian High Commissioners. The first elections to the Bundestag took place in August 1949, and brought to power the Christian Democrats under Konrad Adenauer, who was elected Chancellor when the opening session of the new Parliament took place in Bonn on 7 September.

In the new Republic the freedom of the press was to be ensured by the Basic Law or ‘Grundgesetz’-the constitution that had been proclaimed in May 1949. Article 5 of the Grundrtsetz states :

Everyone has the right freely to express or to disseminate his opinion by speech, writing and pictures and freely to inform himself from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by radio and film are guaranteed. There is no censor­ship. These rights are limited by the provisions of the general laws, the provisions of the law for the protection of youth, and by the right to inviolability of personal honour.

However, the legal position of the press in the Federal Repub­lic was, and indeed still is, not as clear as many would wish. The Constitution was drawn up with the object of avoiding the creation of an over-powerful central government, and consequently the formula­tion of Press Laws-subject to the guidelines of the Federal Constitu­tion-was left to the governments of the Lander.

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Until these different laws came into effect, a process that was not completed until 1966, it was generally held that the Reichspressegesetz of 1874- obtained for the Land in question, though the niceties of the situa­tion were much debated in legal circles, with disputes normally being, referred to the Federal Constitutional Court at Karlsruhe.